Battle of Veghel

The Battle of Veghel occurred on 22 September 1944 during Operation Market Garden in World War II. The town of Veghel was captured by US-British Allied forces, who sought to use Veghel's bridges to continue the Allied advance into Central Europe.

On 22 September 1944, the US 101st Airborne Division and armor from the British XXX Corps set out to secure the town of Veghel from the Germans. The Americans engaged in street-to-street fighting with the Germans, who even brought up armored support against the paratroops. The Americans succeeded in destroying a few German tanks before the XXX Corps' armor arrived to assist the Americans. The British tanks cleared the streets, advancing up Veghel's roads while mowing down German infantry with machine-gun fire and blasting Flak guns and German tanks with tank shells. The British tanks ultimately secured the town of Veghel by finishing the last German resistance, and the Allies occupied the area.

On 24 September, the Germans attempted to break through Eerde to try and reach the bridges at Veghel. The Germans sought to cut the road and destroy the bridges across the canal, with a wider objective of cutting off and destroying the Allied forces to the north of Veghel, namely at Nijmegen and Arnhem. 200 German troops and 4 tanks assaulted Veghel under the cover of fog and mortar fire, with Friedrich von der Heydte's 6th Fallschirmjaeger Regiment attacking Eerde from the sand dunes. The Germans were unable to gain more ground, and a platoon of the US 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment succeeded in pushing the Germans from the sand dunes. Just as the Americans prepared to launch another attack and clear the Germans east of Eerde, they discovered that the Germans had moved around Eerde and reached the corridor to their south, known as "Hell's Highway". The 6th Fallschirmjaegers and Kampfgruppe Jungwirth approached the corridor, and the Germans succeeded in capturing the road. The Allies launched several frantic counterattacks as the number of German forces in the corridor swelled, and the Germans found themselves surrounded. On the night of 25-26 September, as the British evacuated Oosterbeek, the Germans evacuated their positions in the Logtenburg Forest as well, as they were surrounded and deprived of ammunition. While the Germans were unable to retake Veghel, they had prevented reinforcements from being sent to Arnhem, sealing the fate of John Frost's British forces there.